I See Good AAs Get Stuck
Part One: The Spiritual Function of Step Ten
One of the great ironies of Alcoholics Anonymous is that many of us spend years trying to achieve what page 84 of the Big Book says has already been given:
“We have been placed in a position of neutrality—safe and protected.”
That statement appears in the middle of Step Ten. Not Step One. Not Step Eleven.
Step Ten.
It is the step that stands precisely between the mechanical actions of initial recovery and the daily life of the Spirit.
When selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, or fear crop up, we are not instructed to become experts in them. We are not told to monitor them endlessly, manage them indefinitely, or organize our lives around controlling them.
Instead, we are given a direct directive: “We ask God at once to remove them.”
Then something happens. The pressure eases. The perspective shifts. The struggle diminishes. We return to neutrality.
The same pattern of non-resistance appears in Step Eleven: “We relax and take it easy. We don’t struggle.”
That sentence is easy to overlook, yet it may be one of the most radical statements in the entire book. We do not struggle our way into relaxation. We do not fight our way into peace. We do not wrestle our way into surrender. Peace is the effect; surrender is the cause.
Perhaps this is how we truly grow in understanding:
Not by becoming increasingly sophisticated students of fear.
Not by becoming specialists in resentment.
Not by spending our lives cataloging defects.
But by repeatedly witnessing what happens after turning them over to God.
This is where I sometimes see good AAs get stuck. Not drunk, not failing, and not abandoning the program—simply stuck. Their attention remains fixed on the defect instead of the removal. They focus on the problem instead of the solution; the obstruction instead of the Power that removes it.
While page 84 describes a position of neutrality that is safe and protected, many of us settle for lifelong management of our defects, never fully trusting the process designed to remove them. Step Ten is not merely a method for identifying spiritual disturbances. It is the method for recovering from them.
The lesson is not that fear exists. The lesson is that God is sufficient.
Part Two: The Homeostasis of the Spirit
The more I consider the process described in Step Ten, the more it resembles another remarkable breakthrough being mapped during the exact same historical period. In 1932, Harvard physiologist Walter Cannon published The Wisdom of the Body, popularizing the concept of homeostasis—the body’s innate capacity to maintain internal equilibrium.
In the physical realm, the sequence is automatic:
A threat appears. The body reacts.
The system shifts. Heart rate increases, breathing changes, muscles tighten, and stress hormones are released as the body moves away from balance to prepare for action.
The threat passes. Another process takes over. Breathing slows, muscles relax, and hormones recede.
Equilibrium returns.
The purpose of the autonomic nervous system is neither perpetual stimulation nor perpetual relaxation. Its purpose is balance. The system is designed not to avoid disturbance, but to recover from it.
The resemblance to Step Ten is striking. A resentment appears, a fear crops up, selfishness emerges, or dishonesty intrudes. Spiritual equilibrium is disturbed. The instruction is not to intensify the disturbance by studying it endlessly, nor to become preoccupied with analyzing its roots. Instead, we ask God at once to remove them.
A corrective action is applied, and the disturbance begins to subside. Perspective changes, the pressure eases, and balance returns.
The autonomic nervous system does not solve stress by becoming more stressed; it restores equilibrium by changing states. Likewise, Step Ten does not solve fear by fearing harder. It does not solve resentment by analyzing resentment more deeply, nor selfishness through endless self-preoccupation. It introduces surrender. The state changes, and the symptom follows.
This explains why the language of Step Eleven sounds so structurally familiar: “We relax and take it easy. We don’t struggle.” The body does not struggle its way back to homeostasis; it returns. The Big Book describes the exact same movement in spiritual language. What physiology calls homeostasis, Alcoholics Anonymous calls a fit spiritual condition.
Both describe a self-correcting system: Disturbance ---> Response ---> Restoration ---> Life Continues
Seen in this light, Step Ten functions as a form of spiritual homeostasis. The purpose is not the endless examination of internal storms, but the rapid restoration of equilibrium. It is the vital bridge between recovery as an event and recovery as a way of life.
Part Three: Having Your Cake and Eating It Too
Perhaps the long-running debate between faith and science asks the wrong question. For generations, observers have argued over whether Alcoholics Anonymous works because of God, psychology, community, or neurochemistry. Yet beneath those debates lies a simple, observable sequence:
Fear arises, resentment appears, or selfishness emerges. The alcoholic turns toward a Higher Power. The disturbance subsides, and balance returns. The experience is repeatable, and the effect is real.
At nearly the same historical moment, physiology was describing a twin process: a threat appears, the body responds, equilibrium is disturbed, corrective mechanisms engage, and balance returns. One system speaks the language of the spirit; the other speaks the language of physiology. Yet both describe the identical pattern of disturbance, response, and restoration.
The alcoholic need not decide whether God acts through biology, nor must the physiologist decide whether biology points toward God. Those questions may never be settled, and fortunately, they do not have to be. The practical observation is enough.
Both systems suggest that health is not the absence of disturbance. Health is the ability to recover from disturbance.
This insight dissolves a false choice. Many assume they must choose between being fully human and being spiritually free. They believe they can either experience fear or experience serenity; feel life's disturbances or maintain neutrality—but never both.
Step Ten and the autonomic nervous system suggest otherwise. Neither system promises immunity from life. Both assume that disturbance will occur. The goal is not immunity; the goal is recovery. The healthy body experiences stress and returns to equilibrium; the healthy spirit experiences disturbance and returns to neutrality. The body does not fail because it responds to danger, and the spirit does not fail because it encounters fear. Failure occurs only when restoration ceases.
The miracle described on page 84 is not that the alcoholic never experiences another storm. The miracle is that he no longer lives there. He returns, again and again—just as the healthy body returns to homeostasis, and just as the healthy spirit returns to God.
And that is why the recovered alcoholic can, in a very real sense, have his cake and eat it too. He can participate fully in the human condition while remaining deeply rooted in the world of the Spirit. He can experience life’s storms without building a house in them. He can feel fear without becoming fear; feel anger without becoming anger; feel grief without becoming grief.
He can live fully—and then return home.
